Originally Posted by
Kontact
You're making a series of unwarranted assumptions, like why toe clips are the length they are. They could have been longer if anyone wanted them to be, and the straps could have been further forward as well.
It's a lot easier to get the foot out if the strap doesn't go past the first metatarsal head though.
But all of this is your speculation based on the belief that everyone until now was just bumbling around in the dark. But they weren't: Finished velodromes and stopwatches have been around for well over a century, and top athletes have been looking for whatever advantage they could find the entire time. If you think six day racers didn't care about their performance or preventing injuries, you are mistaken.
Well, to be fair, they kinda were bumbling in the dark. Velodromes and stop watches are all well and good until you realize that for example for seat height peak power and efficiency contradict, ie. with a higher saddle peak power goes up but efficiency goes down. With a lower saddle (to a point) efficiency increases and peak power goes down. So cyclists of yonder ended up with high seats since they probably felt stronger. But efficiency is pretty much impossible to test with a stopwatch. It's really difficult to do without a power meter and breath gas analysis.
As far as what is natural, watch people climb stairs and ladders sometime. When standing, we want to use the balls of our feet. When seated, I doubt it matters all that much because the torque is much lower.
Climbing stairs or ladders isn't cycling though...
If some actual data comes up, great. Until then, your idle speculation seems like you have a belief you haven't really thought through yet. Good luck.
It's funny you should say that, since I've never seen you post a reference for anything. You ride with the "knowledge of the ancients" as if that should be sufficient.
But here's a Dylan Johnson video on efficiency of clipless vs flat pedals
If you don't want to look at the funny stuff, just look up the studies. But spoilers: there's no difference in efficiency. Sometimes clipless is less efficient.
On the topic of cleat fore aft placement:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38512304/
Moving cleats back helps with foot pain
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16901493/
There's no difference in efficiency between mid foot and front foot cleat position. However interestingly with the three tested positions (under first metatarsal head, mid foot and between the two) there was 27% and 53% less calf (ankle planter flexors) activation. The tests were at 90% of ventilatory threshold and only lasted for 3 minutes at a time, so long term endurance could not be measured. However 27% and 53% less calf activation means a dramatic drop in the strain of the muscles and tendons at that area. Achilles tendon being a major one.
Now as dramatic as the above results were, the reality is that if you want to get anywhere near even the mid cleat position of the study (slightly behind the fifth metatarsal head), you'll need a custom shoe. Road shoes have around 1cm of adjustment. MTB shoes are much better in that regard, but even with Lakes, slamming the cleats all the way back puts the cleat between the first and fifth metatarsal heads. So advising someone to move their cleats back isn't actually at all dramatic. What would be dramatic would be to advise them to get a mid foot insert, but no one's done that. Yet.